June 11, 2025 • 19 mins
McGrath’s Tony O’Doherty is one OF Australia’s top real estate agents: He has sold more than $270m worth of residential property over the last year…and he’s got some very useful information to impart, one secret in particular will fascinate you.
Tony O’Doherty of the McGrath property group in Bulimba joins Associate Editor -Wealth, James Kirby in this edition.
------
In today’s show, we cover:
* The biggest risk facing today’s property investors
* Hottest areas for long-term property investment
* Queensland - Why it’s so popular right now
* Oh yes, the secret..well, you’ll just have to listen…
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm
James Kirkby. Welcome aboard everybody. You Every now and again
you come across somebody in the property industry and they
just catch your eye. Tony Odaherty is a real estate
agent with the McGrath Group and he quite simply wowed
the audience at the National Property Conference, the Eric Conference
on the Gold Coast recently, and I'll tell you he
(00:29):
had some stiff competition on stage there. I can tell
you he's one of the top real estate agents in
Queensland and remarkably, and this is a complete coincidence which
you'll probably find hard to believe, but it's true because
I didn't know he was Irish when I went to
look for him as an interview, but we grew up.
I would say, cycling distance from each other in County
(00:50):
Limerick and the West of Ireland. I didn't know that
until today. So it's going to be fun. How are you, Tony.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm very well. I'm very well. Thank you for having
me today and hopefully sharing some wisdow.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Thank you well. Look at you know. One of the
things I thought I would ask you, and I think
it's something that is special when you come from another
place and it just so happens that you come from
the same place as me, but it could have been anywhere.
And then you get really involved in the property industry,
you only get like, you get one chance right to
have first impression. And when you arrived and you looked around,
(01:21):
it was probably different than now. But what was your
immediate ideas in terms of the opportunities that you could
see in front of you and the risks that were
different if you like, that were distinct to Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I think the opportunity here is residential real estate, which
is my area of expertise. Yeah, the opportunity is phenomenal
from my point of view. As a selling agent. We
get paid to assist people sell their properties, as you
well know. But Australian culture, we move quite a lot
on average. One used to be an average once every
seven years in the areas I operate from now once
(01:50):
every five years. Yes, then you have the unfortunate reality
of people, you know, partying ways, which is culturally extremely
common in this country, in excessive fifty percent, which I
know we're not here to talk about, but.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It means people are changing it's turnover.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
There's turnover where you and I grew up. And it's
not just in our neck of the woods. It's Europe
in general. If you were speaking to an Italian guy
and a Greek guy, they most likely did not move
their family home every five years, in fact, staying there
forever intergenerationally. Often yes, yes, like our previous generations. My
mum was in a house that she's three hundred years
with her people have been in that house. Australians don't
(02:27):
do that. The other opportunity for me was sky high
is ownership in Australia. The Australian dream is to own
a property. That recently, Switzerland, which is one of the
best economies in Europe, sixty six percent of people in Switzerland,
which you're known as Swiss people. I have to think
about that. It shows you Swiss, It shows you if
(02:49):
I can make it in real estate, So do can you?
Ironic the Swiss people sixty six of them rinned they
don't own a property.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Six very common continental Europe. Same, Yeah, Austria is similar
and even Germany. But here's the thing, so that's your
So you could see the opportunity, of course, and you
can see the stinct opportunities tell me about it's hard.
Maybe even the world risk isn't the right world. But
where things could go wrong I'm guessing. But if you see,
if you've and you've come to this market, and you've
(03:15):
watched it particularly obviously a very hot market Queensland for
a long time, I imagine complacency must be something of an
issue that people think it's all too easy.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Look, first of all, I'm a big believer in property.
I bought a property again recently myself. I think the
risk to your listeners are exposure and leverage. Warm Buffett,
the smartest mind of all when it comes to money,
describes the three greatest risk to mankind is in disorder, liquor, ladies,
and leverage. I'm not going to tell you what to drink.
We hope you're doing the right thing at home. Leverage
(03:47):
is the risky one. Leverage is the risky one. When
you buy real estate, make sure you can afford to
make your repayments at you know, higher interest rates than
what are currently occurring. The risk is over exposure, a
long term thing we know about real estate. Guaranteed as
sure as night follows day, real estate property will go
up mightn't be here in year, but it will be
decade on decade. So the smartest people I know in
(04:09):
terms of residential real estate, which is the area that
I'm across, buy and hold, yes by and wait.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
But at the same time you were telling me the
start there is this endless turnover accelerating turnovers. So not
everybody has the choice. I suppose sometimes and as you say,
people get stretched. Just explain if you would, about in
this market, and it's a hot market, what are the
issues that people should be careful of when they're entering
the market or they're starting to accumulate money. Of the
(04:40):
money puzzle listeners there will beyond there only their first home.
They're just starting to build properly by residential start to subdivide.
What are the issues there?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So when you talk about developers, and we'll discuss them,
we'll call them mom and dad developers or amateur developers.
I currently have a development business. We do knockdown rebuilds.
Consider must have an amateur developer despite the fact that
I've done quite a lot and do a lot at once.
What makes me an amateur is I buy on market
pain market value. I'm not a builder or a town
planner or anything. I am a sales agent, but that's
(05:12):
the back end, so I'm an amateur. I can't save
the fifteen percent or twenty percent that you're likely paying
your builder to build, so therefore I'm not a professional
developer by my own definition. They risk to a lot
of mom and dads, and we love to see this
as an agent on behalf of my clients. I don't
like to see it as a developer is that people
are over pain all too often, and they're over pain
(05:33):
not acknowledging what it's going to require to do the development.
You see, although I'm a due development I don't do
any development in the areas that I sell because my
primary function is to optimize a sale price and raise
the values. So I continuously do it in other areas.
But the risk to people I see. I sell homes
to people all the time at auction where your reserve
(05:54):
might be two million, which is already aggressive. It sells
for two point four. You congratulate the buyer and you
know their plans are to be a developer, and I
understand development. Then you're like, WHOA, they're paying for today
but requiring future prices, so.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
They're backing too much into it, asking the market too much.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
They're asking the market to bail them out. And for
me as a it's fantastic. Yes, you want me to talk,
We're here to talk about you know, the other side
of the coin. I think the risk is to people
growing costs. The development space as a whole. Right now,
Land is at an all time high. Building costs is
at an all time high, and generally speaking, in prices
over the last year or two have stabilized. Though there's
(06:36):
three key factors to development. Buy well, build well, sell well.
It's very hard to do three of them, almost impossible,
but you need to do too and most people are
doing one. And I hope that's enough.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
You make your profit when you buy, is that.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Not if you buy off of us? I want that clear.
A good agent job is to make sure that they
optimize the sale price by running a great campaign where
I buy well. When I'm buying is I tend to
buy two buyers agents. So again in massive space, I'll
summarize that in two sentences. A good buyer's agent is free.
They cost you nothing. They cover their cost. A bad
or average bars agent is just another stamp duty. So
(07:14):
there is opportunity to buy it. There's a lot of
I think my industry, it has been described at today's
conference ninety seven percent poor professionals, five percent good, two
percent great. So if you're buying after ninety seven percent
who are lazy and not given good advice, and often
it's the vendors fault. They're hiring the agent who's the cheapest,
they're avoiding marketing costs, they're thinking about pennies when they're
(07:35):
transacting millions.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Right. It's funny, isn't it. It's common in all industries.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, there's always no industries.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
You know that the ten percent of the eighty percent
of the business, and there's a reason for that. Tell
me about something I wanted to ask you. Would you say?
It's how would you categorize the atmosphere at the moment
in terms of their property market. Sometimes there's issues that
are very clear, like that the rates of sky high
rates and sky high right now they're actually starting to fall.
(08:02):
Some people say prices are very expensive, Well they are,
but so they are all around the world. How would
you categorize this market at the moment?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I think if we're talking about a national level and
a global level, it's an interesting time. There's a lot
of stress on all markets, a lot of political stress,
financial stress, stock level stress, there is a lot going on.
Affordability seems to be an issue for some and let's
be real, the richer getting richer and that's just the case,
and that's probably a lot of your listeners.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And in fact it's the fact this came up on
the earlier podcast on the are A conference, a very
similar observation. They know that and they're going for that
end of the market as which is something. But so
that's a characteristic of the market at the moment. Maybe
it's separating to some degree.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
The gap is getting bigger on a global level and
a local level. I think markets are marginally more attainable.
I'm not an expert in your law market. Which is
Melbourne not a local market substantial?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Well, it's a national show with people listening from all markets.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yes, okay, yeah, so my as you said, Queensland agent,
Melbourne is an area where and when I speak to
my more successful clients, they're fully exploring Melbourne. Now, Melbourne
is a global city in terms of stature and population
and what it offers. Yet it's median house price correct
me if I'm wrong, as our Brisbanes has marginally got ahead.
(09:26):
So that to me is that doesn't make sense in
a you know, on a global or national level, if
I was an investor, now, yeah, I look at Queensland,
don't get me wrong. And even Sydney Like Sydney, Sydney's
always been a very aggressive market since the Olympics, like
growth it had the four years leading up. And you
can talk to experts and there's data there and all
(09:47):
these different forms of information where they tell you that
market is going to correct. By god, have they been wrong.
I mean they've been wrong for several twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
They've been five years exactly. Look, well, take a short break.
We'll be back in a moment. Hello, Welcome back to
The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. James Kirby here today at
(10:15):
the ERIC Conference in the Gold Coast and I'm talking
to Tonio Diharty from the McGrath Group. Tony is an agent,
a top rating agent in the state of Queensland, but
with both national and international. I would suggest Tony. So
one of the things we were saying there about property
and whether it's expensive or not, is it expensive amount
(10:37):
I don't really know. You look at prices in all
other countries. We were just talking about that, since we
both know Ireland and Dublin property prices are higher than here.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Dublin property prices are the small economy alarming.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Again, we don't need to overly get into it because
I don't know how many of your listeners are from Dublin.
But I think there's mismanagement there with housing supplies and
people are going for the safer economy that is Dublin.
There's plenty of opportunity to buy value across Europe and
in Ireland, just not in Dublin. Personally speaking, I'd be
very slow, and I'm no expert in that market I'm
talken about as a consumer, I'd be very slow to
(11:12):
bout hinting those markets.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, so you don't have that, you don't have that
concern here.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I don't have that concern here. We've got more than
one string to our bow. Yeah, you know, there's so
many industries here. It's a country that has continuously grown
population wise, and you're surrounded by massive economies Asian economies,
Middle Eastern economies. Yes, and it's a safe if you're
a wealthy individual from these foreign countries. Your money is
safe in Australia. You're going to take it out of
(11:38):
your bank account tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
At least you have a stability.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
There's an element of stability, you know. It's not a communism.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, there isn't. Sovereign risk isn't something that's really on
the table. I want it now. On this segment, I
want to ask you as an agent. Everyone listening to
this show will sell property regularly in one way or another.
Tell us about how someone should select in agents and
how they should get their pretty ready for sale.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Okay, so two massive questions. Selecting an agent, I would
be going off performance. Who's the guy or girl in
your geographical area? Remember this is a geographical sport. You
hire somebody who's quite dominant in your area. You sit
them down and you talk to them. The reason why
you should interview if you don't have a relationship two
or three agents. You should disregard fee, disregard marketing because
(12:25):
all too often a vendor will say to me, oh,
we want to work with you, but your marketing budget
is eight thousand and this guy's four thousand. That's not
a reduced marketing budget. That's a reduced level of exposure.
So my suggestion would be interview the high performers that
have you know, you've seen, you've noticed in your area,
sit them down and see who you feel as though
you can trust in a more holistic way. I find
(12:47):
that your gut will tell you who's telling you the
truth and who's over promising, and.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
What way would that person the better agent? I mean,
I'll obviously get a better price, right, but what do
they do that makes them Superior's.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
See, it's not one thing, it's everything. It's not one thing,
it's everything. It's hard to define success in one question
in fifteen seconds, but it is everything. So what does
that look like? You mentioned presentation? The most important thing
is in a campaign when it comes to optimization of
a sale price presentation? How do you bring emotion into
a problem? So it starts by it might be a
lick a Paine new Carpets handyman to fix all the
(13:23):
the imperfections. You've got a building and Pett report done again,
so you find anything about I might find in advance,
and you fix it. Styling a home. Almost every home
that we sell now is style. Yes, yes, the reason
for that is emotion. You want that man and woman,
that husband and wife to walk in the door and
really want it and really want it. Yeah, it is
a start. Which is this is it's sexist and accurate.
It says that women make the fundamental decision when buying homes.
(13:46):
We kind of know that, but what you may not
know is ninety two percent of the time. So you
need to really make the home pop is the questionable
terminology we use. But you want that husband and wife
to walk in.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
To buy it as a home, as a property as
That's very interesting. Yes, I see, given buy.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Houses, you need to appeal to them and if they wanted,
price becomes less. But in a reason everybody's got capacity.
But you want them to buy with emotion and justify
with logic, not buy with logic because logically I can
get you a better price to a motion than I
can through logic.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
That's very interesting. That's very interesting. All right, take short break, folks.
I want to one or two more key questions for Tony.
Back in a moment. Hello, Welcome back to the Australian's
Money Puzzle podcast. James Kirby here, but Tony or Dougherty
(14:40):
from McGrath real Estate. Tony what's the one thing that
at the end of each day that consistently you get
annoyed with with you? What the mistakes that people make,
that the clients make. Is it that they expect too much,
they expect too little, too fast? Is there something that
is a something? So that is a constant sort of
(15:02):
bear bug.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It'd be more about my industry than with my clients.
And I suppose it's people hiring. We've got high market
share in the area we work in. High market share
means in thirty percent of what you say of your area,
So that means seven out of ten people go to
the market without meeting with the most dominant person in
the area. So my personal selfish pet hate is the
(15:25):
fact that Hey, give us an opportunity, don't hire us
because you don't like us, but don't not interview us.
And that's my entitled little line there, guys, just so
you heard it, my pet hate. The thing that I
feel the most sorry for vendors is they're often going
with the agent that seems to be cheap. Is that
the start yes, turns out to be the most expensive. Yes,
I've got a list of agents. When a friend of
(15:46):
mine rings me and says I'm looking to buy something here,
I'll say, don't worry about streets, worry about agents. The
right agent can get you into a property in twenty
twenty five for twenty twenty the wrong agent, but the
right for them can work rewind the clock back two years.
So there's plenty of very average agents out there. Sav
the savvy's developers I know are picking the eyes out
(16:08):
of the weak agents. And the cost of mom and
dads who've lived there is for decades. Yes, we're trusting
the professional and all because they heard the wrong guyer
girl right.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
It's amazing, isn't it. It's still so individual personable really
as a business. Yeah, yeah, very interesting. I have a
couple of questions if you bear with me. We take
questions every week. If you want to add to subtract
to this, you can. The first is from Evan Hi James.
I love the info around the property in super This
was the show Tony where we talked about whether owning
(16:36):
property inside superannuation made sense any longer. But there's so
many rules now there's the new super tax, which is
going to crimp things further, and the number of people
who are actually prepared to lend two people in their smsfs.
So the banks have run away from the business completely.
Evan asks in property, can I run my own business
out of? How does that work? That's the best one, Evan.
(16:58):
That's called direct property, where you can actually put if
you own a business. And let's say it's called Evans Toys.
And this, by the way, is never advice, it's information only.
But let's say there's a company called Evans Toys. You
have your own super fund, Evans Toys can actually the
building that Evans Toys works out of can be owned
by your superfund and pay your superfund rent. That is
(17:19):
it at its most, at its very best. That's how
it works. I'm sure you can. We can develop that
on another show. Thanks Evan, and Kathy asks what are
property depositive bonds? Would you like to tell people what
they are? Tony? And do you get people? Actually? Do
you like it when that happens and someone says, I
don't have a deposit, but I've got a property deposit bond.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Look at Okay, So deposit bond is where you don't
have you bind a property off me. We're asking for
a five percent deposit and rather than you transferring one
hundred thousand dollars to our trust account. You're going to
the bank, and the bank are essentially giving you in
all money a bank guarantee. Yes, So to me, when
I advise my clients, they're as strong as the lender.
So if the bank guarantees from a top tier bank
eighty percent at the time, that was a randomness did
(18:00):
pulled out of the sky. What was your lying there
that that was? This is not advice, it was just
information like that. I would have no problem telling my
client if it's a top tier bank that this is okay,
because it is essentially revenue, and.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's normally with someone who knows the money's kind of
come in. It's just timing, yeah, or they're.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Willing to give you equity. The bank I might saying, okay,
we know you've got this, so therefore we're happy to
give you a line of credit essentially. But yeah, so
it's not common.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It's not common still even at the higher end.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Even at the higher end, like when I say not common,
five ten percent of the time, I wouldn't even be
one intent to be honest with you. So there's nothing
wrong with it. Again, if it's a good lender out
of no problem saying that cline to mind, and again
I'd ask them to get their own advice. I would
have no problem recommending a top tier banks bank guarantee. Okay, pause,
upond in your words.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And ironically, Kathy, of course, the biggest charlector in the
country is the Albaneza government because they've just about introduced, well,
they're about to introduce the universal Property Guarantee, which means
anyone by their first home, all they need is five
percent and deposit and the other fifteen is covered by
the government guarantee. That's the universal Government guarantee scheme for
first time virus about to begin on July one. Okay,
(19:10):
we'll leave it there, Tony, thank you very much for coming.
Great to talk to you. Pleasure and keep those emails running.
The money Puzzle at the Australian dot com dot au
Hello, and welcome to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm
James Kirkby. Welcome aboard everybody. You Every now and again
you come across somebody in the property industry and they
just catch your eye. Tony Odaherty is a real estate
agent with the McGrath Group and he quite simply wowed
the audience at the National Property Conference, the Eric Conference
on the Gold Coast recently, and I'll tell you he
(00:29):
had some stiff competition on stage there. I can tell
you he's one of the top real estate agents in
Queensland and remarkably, and this is a complete coincidence which
you'll probably find hard to believe, but it's true because
I didn't know he was Irish when I went to
look for him as an interview, but we grew up.
I would say, cycling distance from each other in County
(00:50):
Limerick and the West of Ireland. I didn't know that
until today. So it's going to be fun. How are you, Tony.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm very well. I'm very well. Thank you for having
me today and hopefully sharing some wisdow.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Thank you well. Look at you know. One of the
things I thought I would ask you, and I think
it's something that is special when you come from another
place and it just so happens that you come from
the same place as me, but it could have been anywhere.
And then you get really involved in the property industry,
you only get like, you get one chance right to
have first impression. And when you arrived and you looked around,
(01:21):
it was probably different than now. But what was your
immediate ideas in terms of the opportunities that you could
see in front of you and the risks that were
different if you like, that were distinct to Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I think the opportunity here is residential real estate, which
is my area of expertise. Yeah, the opportunity is phenomenal
from my point of view. As a selling agent. We
get paid to assist people sell their properties, as you
well know. But Australian culture, we move quite a lot
on average. One used to be an average once every
seven years in the areas I operate from now once
(01:50):
every five years. Yes, then you have the unfortunate reality
of people, you know, partying ways, which is culturally extremely
common in this country, in excessive fifty percent, which I
know we're not here to talk about, but.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It means people are changing it's turnover.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
There's turnover where you and I grew up. And it's
not just in our neck of the woods. It's Europe
in general. If you were speaking to an Italian guy
and a Greek guy, they most likely did not move
their family home every five years, in fact, staying there
forever intergenerationally. Often yes, yes, like our previous generations. My
mum was in a house that she's three hundred years
with her people have been in that house. Australians don't
(02:27):
do that. The other opportunity for me was sky high
is ownership in Australia. The Australian dream is to own
a property. That recently, Switzerland, which is one of the
best economies in Europe, sixty six percent of people in Switzerland,
which you're known as Swiss people. I have to think
about that. It shows you Swiss, It shows you if
(02:49):
I can make it in real estate, So do can you?
Ironic the Swiss people sixty six of them rinned they
don't own a property.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Six very common continental Europe. Same, Yeah, Austria is similar
and even Germany. But here's the thing, so that's your
So you could see the opportunity, of course, and you
can see the stinct opportunities tell me about it's hard.
Maybe even the world risk isn't the right world. But
where things could go wrong I'm guessing. But if you see,
if you've and you've come to this market, and you've
(03:15):
watched it particularly obviously a very hot market Queensland for
a long time, I imagine complacency must be something of an
issue that people think it's all too easy.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Look, first of all, I'm a big believer in property.
I bought a property again recently myself. I think the
risk to your listeners are exposure and leverage. Warm Buffett,
the smartest mind of all when it comes to money,
describes the three greatest risk to mankind is in disorder, liquor, ladies,
and leverage. I'm not going to tell you what to drink.
We hope you're doing the right thing at home. Leverage
(03:47):
is the risky one. Leverage is the risky one. When
you buy real estate, make sure you can afford to
make your repayments at you know, higher interest rates than
what are currently occurring. The risk is over exposure, a
long term thing we know about real estate. Guaranteed as
sure as night follows day, real estate property will go
up mightn't be here in year, but it will be
decade on decade. So the smartest people I know in
(04:09):
terms of residential real estate, which is the area that
I'm across, buy and hold, yes by and wait.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
But at the same time you were telling me the
start there is this endless turnover accelerating turnovers. So not
everybody has the choice. I suppose sometimes and as you say,
people get stretched. Just explain if you would, about in
this market, and it's a hot market, what are the
issues that people should be careful of when they're entering
the market or they're starting to accumulate money. Of the
(04:40):
money puzzle listeners there will beyond there only their first home.
They're just starting to build properly by residential start to subdivide.
What are the issues there?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So when you talk about developers, and we'll discuss them,
we'll call them mom and dad developers or amateur developers.
I currently have a development business. We do knockdown rebuilds.
Consider must have an amateur developer despite the fact that
I've done quite a lot and do a lot at once.
What makes me an amateur is I buy on market
pain market value. I'm not a builder or a town
planner or anything. I am a sales agent, but that's
(05:12):
the back end, so I'm an amateur. I can't save
the fifteen percent or twenty percent that you're likely paying
your builder to build, so therefore I'm not a professional
developer by my own definition. They risk to a lot
of mom and dads, and we love to see this
as an agent on behalf of my clients. I don't
like to see it as a developer is that people
are over pain all too often, and they're over pain
(05:33):
not acknowledging what it's going to require to do the development.
You see, although I'm a due development I don't do
any development in the areas that I sell because my
primary function is to optimize a sale price and raise
the values. So I continuously do it in other areas.
But the risk to people I see. I sell homes
to people all the time at auction where your reserve
(05:54):
might be two million, which is already aggressive. It sells
for two point four. You congratulate the buyer and you
know their plans are to be a developer, and I
understand development. Then you're like, WHOA, they're paying for today
but requiring future prices, so.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
They're backing too much into it, asking the market too much.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
They're asking the market to bail them out. And for
me as a it's fantastic. Yes, you want me to talk,
We're here to talk about you know, the other side
of the coin. I think the risk is to people
growing costs. The development space as a whole. Right now,
Land is at an all time high. Building costs is
at an all time high, and generally speaking, in prices
over the last year or two have stabilized. Though there's
(06:36):
three key factors to development. Buy well, build well, sell well.
It's very hard to do three of them, almost impossible,
but you need to do too and most people are
doing one. And I hope that's enough.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
You make your profit when you buy, is that.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Not if you buy off of us? I want that clear.
A good agent job is to make sure that they
optimize the sale price by running a great campaign where
I buy well. When I'm buying is I tend to
buy two buyers agents. So again in massive space, I'll
summarize that in two sentences. A good buyer's agent is free.
They cost you nothing. They cover their cost. A bad
or average bars agent is just another stamp duty. So
(07:14):
there is opportunity to buy it. There's a lot of
I think my industry, it has been described at today's
conference ninety seven percent poor professionals, five percent good, two
percent great. So if you're buying after ninety seven percent
who are lazy and not given good advice, and often
it's the vendors fault. They're hiring the agent who's the cheapest,
they're avoiding marketing costs, they're thinking about pennies when they're
(07:35):
transacting millions.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Right. It's funny, isn't it. It's common in all industries.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, there's always no industries.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
You know that the ten percent of the eighty percent
of the business, and there's a reason for that. Tell
me about something I wanted to ask you. Would you say?
It's how would you categorize the atmosphere at the moment
in terms of their property market. Sometimes there's issues that
are very clear, like that the rates of sky high
rates and sky high right now they're actually starting to fall.
(08:02):
Some people say prices are very expensive, Well they are,
but so they are all around the world. How would
you categorize this market at the moment?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I think if we're talking about a national level and
a global level, it's an interesting time. There's a lot
of stress on all markets, a lot of political stress,
financial stress, stock level stress, there is a lot going on.
Affordability seems to be an issue for some and let's
be real, the richer getting richer and that's just the case,
and that's probably a lot of your listeners.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And in fact it's the fact this came up on
the earlier podcast on the are A conference, a very
similar observation. They know that and they're going for that
end of the market as which is something. But so
that's a characteristic of the market at the moment. Maybe
it's separating to some degree.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
The gap is getting bigger on a global level and
a local level. I think markets are marginally more attainable.
I'm not an expert in your law market. Which is
Melbourne not a local market substantial?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Well, it's a national show with people listening from all markets.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yes, okay, yeah, so my as you said, Queensland agent,
Melbourne is an area where and when I speak to
my more successful clients, they're fully exploring Melbourne. Now, Melbourne
is a global city in terms of stature and population
and what it offers. Yet it's median house price correct
me if I'm wrong, as our Brisbanes has marginally got ahead.
(09:26):
So that to me is that doesn't make sense in
a you know, on a global or national level, if
I was an investor, now, yeah, I look at Queensland,
don't get me wrong. And even Sydney Like Sydney, Sydney's
always been a very aggressive market since the Olympics, like
growth it had the four years leading up. And you
can talk to experts and there's data there and all
(09:47):
these different forms of information where they tell you that
market is going to correct. By god, have they been wrong.
I mean they've been wrong for several twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
They've been five years exactly. Look, well, take a short break.
We'll be back in a moment. Hello, Welcome back to
The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. James Kirby here today at
(10:15):
the ERIC Conference in the Gold Coast and I'm talking
to Tonio Diharty from the McGrath Group. Tony is an agent,
a top rating agent in the state of Queensland, but
with both national and international. I would suggest Tony. So
one of the things we were saying there about property
and whether it's expensive or not, is it expensive amount
(10:37):
I don't really know. You look at prices in all
other countries. We were just talking about that, since we
both know Ireland and Dublin property prices are higher than here.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Dublin property prices are the small economy alarming.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Again, we don't need to overly get into it because
I don't know how many of your listeners are from Dublin.
But I think there's mismanagement there with housing supplies and
people are going for the safer economy that is Dublin.
There's plenty of opportunity to buy value across Europe and
in Ireland, just not in Dublin. Personally speaking, I'd be
very slow, and I'm no expert in that market I'm
talken about as a consumer, I'd be very slow to
(11:12):
bout hinting those markets.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, so you don't have that, you don't have that
concern here.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I don't have that concern here. We've got more than
one string to our bow. Yeah, you know, there's so
many industries here. It's a country that has continuously grown
population wise, and you're surrounded by massive economies Asian economies,
Middle Eastern economies. Yes, and it's a safe if you're
a wealthy individual from these foreign countries. Your money is
safe in Australia. You're going to take it out of
(11:38):
your bank account tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
At least you have a stability.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
There's an element of stability, you know. It's not a communism.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, there isn't. Sovereign risk isn't something that's really on
the table. I want it now. On this segment, I
want to ask you as an agent. Everyone listening to
this show will sell property regularly in one way or another.
Tell us about how someone should select in agents and
how they should get their pretty ready for sale.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Okay, so two massive questions. Selecting an agent, I would
be going off performance. Who's the guy or girl in
your geographical area? Remember this is a geographical sport. You
hire somebody who's quite dominant in your area. You sit
them down and you talk to them. The reason why
you should interview if you don't have a relationship two
or three agents. You should disregard fee, disregard marketing because
(12:25):
all too often a vendor will say to me, oh,
we want to work with you, but your marketing budget
is eight thousand and this guy's four thousand. That's not
a reduced marketing budget. That's a reduced level of exposure.
So my suggestion would be interview the high performers that
have you know, you've seen, you've noticed in your area,
sit them down and see who you feel as though
you can trust in a more holistic way. I find
(12:47):
that your gut will tell you who's telling you the
truth and who's over promising, and.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
What way would that person the better agent? I mean,
I'll obviously get a better price, right, but what do
they do that makes them Superior's.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
See, it's not one thing, it's everything. It's not one thing,
it's everything. It's hard to define success in one question
in fifteen seconds, but it is everything. So what does
that look like? You mentioned presentation? The most important thing
is in a campaign when it comes to optimization of
a sale price presentation? How do you bring emotion into
a problem? So it starts by it might be a
lick a Paine new Carpets handyman to fix all the
(13:23):
the imperfections. You've got a building and Pett report done again,
so you find anything about I might find in advance,
and you fix it. Styling a home. Almost every home
that we sell now is style. Yes, yes, the reason
for that is emotion. You want that man and woman,
that husband and wife to walk in the door and
really want it and really want it. Yeah, it is
a start. Which is this is it's sexist and accurate.
It says that women make the fundamental decision when buying homes.
(13:46):
We kind of know that, but what you may not
know is ninety two percent of the time. So you
need to really make the home pop is the questionable
terminology we use. But you want that husband and wife
to walk in.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
To buy it as a home, as a property as
That's very interesting. Yes, I see, given buy.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Houses, you need to appeal to them and if they wanted,
price becomes less. But in a reason everybody's got capacity.
But you want them to buy with emotion and justify
with logic, not buy with logic because logically I can
get you a better price to a motion than I
can through logic.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
That's very interesting. That's very interesting. All right, take short break, folks.
I want to one or two more key questions for Tony.
Back in a moment. Hello, Welcome back to the Australian's
Money Puzzle podcast. James Kirby here, but Tony or Dougherty
(14:40):
from McGrath real Estate. Tony what's the one thing that
at the end of each day that consistently you get
annoyed with with you? What the mistakes that people make,
that the clients make. Is it that they expect too much,
they expect too little, too fast? Is there something that
is a something? So that is a constant sort of
(15:02):
bear bug.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It'd be more about my industry than with my clients.
And I suppose it's people hiring. We've got high market
share in the area we work in. High market share
means in thirty percent of what you say of your area,
So that means seven out of ten people go to
the market without meeting with the most dominant person in
the area. So my personal selfish pet hate is the
(15:25):
fact that Hey, give us an opportunity, don't hire us
because you don't like us, but don't not interview us.
And that's my entitled little line there, guys, just so
you heard it, my pet hate. The thing that I
feel the most sorry for vendors is they're often going
with the agent that seems to be cheap. Is that
the start yes, turns out to be the most expensive. Yes,
I've got a list of agents. When a friend of
(15:46):
mine rings me and says I'm looking to buy something here,
I'll say, don't worry about streets, worry about agents. The
right agent can get you into a property in twenty
twenty five for twenty twenty the wrong agent, but the
right for them can work rewind the clock back two years.
So there's plenty of very average agents out there. Sav
the savvy's developers I know are picking the eyes out
(16:08):
of the weak agents. And the cost of mom and
dads who've lived there is for decades. Yes, we're trusting
the professional and all because they heard the wrong guyer
girl right.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
It's amazing, isn't it. It's still so individual personable really
as a business. Yeah, yeah, very interesting. I have a
couple of questions if you bear with me. We take
questions every week. If you want to add to subtract
to this, you can. The first is from Evan Hi James.
I love the info around the property in super This
was the show Tony where we talked about whether owning
(16:36):
property inside superannuation made sense any longer. But there's so
many rules now there's the new super tax, which is
going to crimp things further, and the number of people
who are actually prepared to lend two people in their smsfs.
So the banks have run away from the business completely.
Evan asks in property, can I run my own business
out of? How does that work? That's the best one, Evan.
(16:58):
That's called direct property, where you can actually put if
you own a business. And let's say it's called Evans Toys.
And this, by the way, is never advice, it's information only.
But let's say there's a company called Evans Toys. You
have your own super fund, Evans Toys can actually the
building that Evans Toys works out of can be owned
by your superfund and pay your superfund rent. That is
(17:19):
it at its most, at its very best. That's how
it works. I'm sure you can. We can develop that
on another show. Thanks Evan, and Kathy asks what are
property depositive bonds? Would you like to tell people what
they are? Tony? And do you get people? Actually? Do
you like it when that happens and someone says, I
don't have a deposit, but I've got a property deposit bond.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Look at Okay, So deposit bond is where you don't
have you bind a property off me. We're asking for
a five percent deposit and rather than you transferring one
hundred thousand dollars to our trust account. You're going to
the bank, and the bank are essentially giving you in
all money a bank guarantee. Yes, So to me, when
I advise my clients, they're as strong as the lender.
So if the bank guarantees from a top tier bank
eighty percent at the time, that was a randomness did
(18:00):
pulled out of the sky. What was your lying there
that that was? This is not advice, it was just
information like that. I would have no problem telling my
client if it's a top tier bank that this is okay,
because it is essentially revenue, and.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's normally with someone who knows the money's kind of
come in. It's just timing, yeah, or they're.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Willing to give you equity. The bank I might saying, okay,
we know you've got this, so therefore we're happy to
give you a line of credit essentially. But yeah, so
it's not common.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It's not common still even at the higher end.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Even at the higher end, like when I say not common,
five ten percent of the time, I wouldn't even be
one intent to be honest with you. So there's nothing
wrong with it. Again, if it's a good lender out
of no problem saying that cline to mind, and again
I'd ask them to get their own advice. I would
have no problem recommending a top tier banks bank guarantee. Okay, pause,
upond in your words.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And ironically, Kathy, of course, the biggest charlector in the
country is the Albaneza government because they've just about introduced, well,
they're about to introduce the universal Property Guarantee, which means
anyone by their first home, all they need is five
percent and deposit and the other fifteen is covered by
the government guarantee. That's the universal Government guarantee scheme for
first time virus about to begin on July one. Okay,
(19:10):
we'll leave it there, Tony, thank you very much for coming.
Great to talk to you. Pleasure and keep those emails running.
The money Puzzle at the Australian dot com dot au
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.